Architecture Commons^™

Subjective Perception Of Varying Reflection Densities In Room Impulse Responses, Hyun Hong

Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction: Dissertations, Thesis, and Student Research

Reverberation time (RT) is a metric commonly used to describe room acoustic conditions, but different rooms which have the same reverberation time can have different reflection densities. Much less is known about how humans perceive different reflection densities and how sensitive humans are to changes in reflection density. Previous investigations in the existing literature have studied the upper limit of distinguishable reflection density using artificial impulse responses, but not with more realistic impulse responses simulated in room acoustic software or measured from real rooms. The aim of this dissertation is to investigate methods for quantifying reflection density from measured impulse …

Discomfort Glare From Small, High Luminance Light Sources In Outdoor Nighttime Environments, Yulia I. Tyukhova

Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction: Dissertations, Thesis, and Student Research

The overarching goal of this research was to examine humans’ subjective and physiological responses to small, high luminance light sources in outdoor nighttime environments. Currently, discomfort glare is rarely calculated in lighting practice (Remaking Cities Institute (RCI) 2011), partly, because it is not known which metric predicts glare most accurately in the given application.

This dissertation describes a parametric experiment evaluating the effects of three glare source luminances (20,000; 205,000; 750,000 cd/m²), two source positions (0°, 10°), two source sizes (10^-5, 10^-4 sr), and three background luminances (0.03; 0.3; 1 cd/m²) on the …

The Effect Of Classical Order On The Seismic Behavior Of Ancient Masonry Columns, Cody M. Buckley

Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction: Dissertations, Thesis, and Student Research

The design and erection of columns in classical Greece and Rome was a deceptively complicated task. Ancient engineers were not guided by a set of building codes, resulting in several regional design variations. The writer Vitruvius condensed these variations into three archetypes or “orders” defined by proportions based on an arbitrary “module”.

The goal of this thesis is to better understand the effect of these proportions on the seismic response of ancient columns through the use of Equivalent Lateral Force Procedure and finite element analysis software. To this end, a parametric study of linearly elastic, free-standing columns with homogeneous material …

Effect Of The Physical Environment On Teacher Satisfaction With Indoor Environmental Quality In Early Learning Schools, Stuart Shell

Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction: Dissertations, Thesis, and Student Research

While the quantity and quality of teacher-child interactions plays a key role in emotional and cognitive development for children, there is scant evidence regarding the contribution of physical environment to child outcomes. This study seeks to understand better the relative importance of variables within the physical environment for occupants. The research design targets teachers’ satisfaction with the physical environment as the outcome variable, based on the assumption that teachers who are more satisfied with their classroom provide higher-quality interactions with children. Teachers from two early learning schools with a total of 31 classrooms completed a written survey that asked about …